Hello, and thank you for visiting my academic website!

Summer 2023 Update: I recently took on a new role outside of academia with the Ontario Provincial Council for Maternal and Child Health (PCMCH) but I am still actively engaged in select research projects.

Winter 2024 Update: I have an Adjunct Lecturer (status-only) appointment in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, though I am unable to supervise or support students at this time.

A bit about me

I hold a PhD in Public Health Sciences (Social and Behavioural Health Sciences), with a specialization in women’s health, from the University of Toronto. As a PhD student, I contributed to several community-based research studies conducted by the Re:searching for 2SLGBTQA+ Health team. In 2023, I completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, with Hilary Brown at the Department of Health and Society at the University of Toronto Scarborough and Yona Lunsky at the Azrieli Adult Neurodevelopmental Centre at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Like my PhD research, my postdoctoral research focused on perinatal health and disability. My postdoctoral research was funded by CIHR and NIH. The findings from the NIH-funded Disability and Pregnancy Study are now summarized in a report (spring 2024) and several academic publications.

I am a co-author of the first known clinical practice guidelines on labour, delivery, and postpartum care for people with physical disabilities and of a growing number of resources for prospective parents with disabilities and health care providers concerning the provision of equitable and accessible perinatal care for people with disabilities. In addition to research in the area of perinatal health and disability, I continue to contribute to several research studies concerning reproductive and perinatal health equity broadly, including perinatal mental health, with researchers, health care providers, and people with lived experience in Canada and the United States.

Primarily drawing on qualitative methodologies, my program of research aims to understand and address inequities in reproductive and perinatal health among populations who experience significant social and health disparities and who are under-studied in reproductive and perinatal health research, notably women and gender diverse people with disabilities and sexual minority women. My research draws on interdisciplinary perspectives, including those reflected within and across the disciplines of public health, psychology, sociology, women and gender studies, and critical disability studies. My approach to research is community-based; I collaborate with people with lived experience in a variety of roles in all stages of the research and knowledge translation process. As well, I often work as part of multidisciplinary teams that include epidemiologists and health care and social service providers.